Vixen workout: Shake it like Beyoncé’s backup dancers

Originally published April 6, 2014 at 6:15 am

Updated April 6, 2014 at 8:16 am

Janet Jones teaches her Vixen Workout class at Body & Soul in Miami. Jones, a classically trained ballerina and former Miami Heat dancer, describes her class as raunchier and sassier than other dance cardio classes with makeup on and hair down.

NEW YORK — As green and red strobes flashed around a darkened Midtown studio, some 75 women, many in animal-print spandex capri pants and wedge-heeled sneakers, scrambled for lipstick touch-ups, then took their places for their exercise class warm-up.

The women obeyed, repeating the words like an incantation while tossing their hair as (there is no other word for it) aerobically as possible. Jones, 32, segued to a “kitten pose” (rear end out, one leg bent), followed by a hip-swiveling, backside-shaking maneuver she called “ay papi, el papi.” Then she led the group in affirmations: “Damn, I look sexy for a Monday night,” four times, crescendo. Members of the Vixen Army, as Jones calls disciples of her Vixen workout, were ready to twerk.

To a soundtrack that was about two-thirds Beyoncé, one-third unprintable except for indefinite articles and conjunctions (and to which nearly everyone knew the words), the group performed suggestive dance moves that Jones has given equally suggestive titles, like “booty call,” “milkshake” and “ridin’ round and gettin’ it.”

Jones refers to this as “me taking urban hip-hop and Justin Biebering it,” but it’s also practical because the names make the moves easier to teach. There is some giggling when Jones or her instructors say things like “give me eight ‘ridin’ round and gettin’ its’ into 10 ‘milkshakes’ into five ‘booty calls,’ ” but mostly, there is just sweating. Hair flipping may not spike the heart rate much, but dropping it low certainly does.

The Vixen workout, which began in Miami in October 2012, has attracted a following of thousands of women, mostly under 35 and many of them mothers of young children, like Jones. Few go, or have ever gone, to traditional gyms. They are drawn to Vixen’s slightly naughty, pretend-you’re-Beyoncé’s-backup-dancer approach (every woman interviewed brought up Beyoncé) and enjoy the emphasis on makeup, blown-out hair and heels as just part of the costume.

“We want you to get dolled up to sweat it all off,” reads the “vixen etiquette” on the website. Jones said her experience as a Heat dancer had taught her that she moved differently when she thought she looked good.

Stephanie Muñoz, 27, said that she used to ridicule women at the gym with makeup, but that her Vixen workout prep includes a manicure and her favorite Nars red lizard lipstick, a siren red. (She draws the line at getting a blowout.)

“It’s like a religious experience,” said Muñoz, of Queens. “You start to feel better about yourself getting ready, and then you do the workout and you feel like a million bucks.”

Carla Acosta-Medina, 30, came to the $15 Midtown class with two friends who were intrigued by the workout when they spotted pictures of it on Instagram.

“You get to sing and dance and feel sexy,” said Medina, who lives in the Bronx and has a 14-month-old daughter. “You feel like you’re onstage performing with Beyoncé. When does a mom get to feel like that?”

If it seemed it was only a matter of time before someone turned twerking into a workout, well, Jones was regularly selling out classes of 125 people before Miley Cyrus’ performance at the Video Music Awards in August. The Vixen workout already had spread throughout South Florida almost entirely thanks to Instagram — sweaty selfies, often in kitten pose, practically are a part of the cool down, and have been since the very first class, attended only by Jones’ cousin and her best friend.

“You only take a selfie when you’re feeling hot,” Jones said.

Post-Cyrus, Jones’ army began hashtagging their pictures with “twerk” or “twerkout” and labeling photos “getting my Miley Cyrus on,” and the workout caught fire. Last fall, classes began in New York. Jones recently flew to Los Angeles to hire instructors; classes will begin there this month.

What makes Jones’ workout different from other of-the-moment dance cardio classes is that her moves are raunchier than the rest — moves most women older than 25 no longer feel comfortable doing in a nightclub, if they ever did.

Unlike many boutique gyms, which focus on hiring hot instructors with genetically blessed physiques, Jones chooses approachable women who are “not the best dancers out there,” to make them relatable. Students are more likely to be singled out and told they look beautiful than corrected on form. In fact, there are no corrections, because “you can’t feel the music wrong,” Jones said.